Sunil Mittal kill switch call: India must control satellite networks, Airtel chairman tells NDTV

The Sunil Mittal kill switch remark came on 13 November, when the Bharti Airtel chairman told NDTV: “The kill switch has to be in India. The control has to be in India,” Yahoo Finance reported. Sunil Bharti Mittal, who runs Bharti Airtel, India’s number two carrier, said Starlink selling in India is “all right”, but that control must stay local. 1

What happened

Mittal told NDTV that Elon Musk seems impatient and frustrated, according to the Yahoo Finance report. Mittal’s group backs OneWeb, a Starlink rival that is also waiting for approval. The report defined a kill switch as the power to slow or shut a network down.

The report said Starlink satellites pass data to each other by laser, so traffic can skip Indian ground stations, and that Mittal said OneWeb has no such links. It also cited United24 as saying Starshield, the military version of Starlink, was slowed in Ukraine from 14 to 24 October, and said Musk blamed that decision on US President Donald Trump. Our report on the Senate records demand covers the Ukraine dispute.

The report added that Musk last month mocked Mukesh Ambani as India’s “real boss” for keeping Starlink out and accused him of blocking Starlink. India denies bias, the report said, and says Starlink filed its security papers last. It carried no comment from Ambani or Reliance Jio.

Key numbers

• 5 years: how long Mittal said OneWeb has waited for permission to operate, per Outlook India on his 14 October remarks.
• About $3 a month: what Indians pay for 5G almost anywhere, against roughly ten times that for satellite, according to the Yahoo Finance report.
• Rs 1,119: the listing price of Jio Platforms on 28 October, in what the report called India’s largest IPO, with shares near Rs 1,400 on 13 November.
• 42.6% and 77.5%: Jio’s share of fixed-line home broadband and of 5G home wireless, per the same report.

Starlink India approval: where the licences stand

At the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on 14 October, Mittal said: “I think I am significantly ahead in the queue from him. I applied five years back,” Outlook India reported. Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia named Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb among three companies holding satellite communication licences, but a licence is not permission to operate. Outlook said Starlink had an initial licence and still needed spectrum and security approvals, and that the Ministry of Communications called claims of unfair treatment “baseless and misconceived”.

The fight is a test for the space and aerospace industry in India and for Musk’s SpaceX, which runs Starlink.

What people said

On 5 November Mittal told Bloomberg TV: “Countries can’t rely on another country,” adding: “Europe needs its own, India needs its own. China’s developing their own,” according to a Digg summary of the Bloomberg interview. Musk has alleged that unnamed “oligarchs” are trying to block Starlink, Outlook reported.

What happens next

The Yahoo Finance report said India’s Cabinet must still set the spectrum fee and the Home Ministry must clear each operator, and that until then no operator can sell. No date was given for either step, so the Sunil Mittal kill switch demand may shape the security conditions attached to any approval.